


Control

by orphan_account



Series: Terrible and True [16]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 06:05:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3108848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not so complicated, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control

Monday, December 27, 1999

Meetings, like many other activities Fargo’s associates dabble in, are a form of torture. The tediousness with which everything is drawn out and gone over from each possible angle ad nauseam is, to Wrench, nothing short of bureaucratic cruelty. The smug looks and barely-hidden snide remarks from the other syndicate guys usually in attendance certainly don’t make the conferences any more tolerable, either.

The first meeting Wrench had with Fargo was both the longest and most insufferable. No interpreter was offered. Just him and his notepad, Mr. Wyngaard, and seven of Fargo’s most seasoned hitmen, alternating between sizing him up and making a show of checking their watches with increasing impatience as the meeting dragged on and on. But three hours and half a notebook later, Wrench was officially in Fargo’s employ, whether the other men under Wyngaard liked it or not.

Today, the only souls in the small board room are Wrench and his boss. Mr. Wyngaard, in his usual unmoving sternness, sits opposite Wrench at the walnut table with a stack of files piled in front of him. A hair shy of forty and severe from his angular features to his manner of conducting business, Wyngaard isn’t the sort of man who should be kept waiting under any circumstances, yet that’s exactly what he’s doing now, thanks to Numbers. As the minutes tick away, Wyngaard’s eyes bore into Wrench’s, cold and indiscernible.

When Numbers slinks into the room he’s almost twenty minutes late and nothing short of haggard. His slumped shoulders are covered by a wrinkled maroon shirt and a deep, brooding frown seems to have been chiseled into his face overnight. Hair that’s normally tamed into submission by an array of products sits unkempt on his head, fluffy and uncombed. Wrench wrinkles his nose as Numbers shuffles past him to take his seat; the man reeks of cigarette smoke. It’s as if Chet’s ghost clings to his back, an uninvited guest in the board room.

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Numbers,” Wyngaard calmly remarks, quirking an eyebrow at his employee’s unusual unkemptness. It may very well be the closest he’ll ever get to showing actual concern.

Numbers nods his head towards Wyngaard as he gets situated in his chair, though his eyes never fully lift towards his boss. “How’s it going?”

Wrench glances towards Numbers and surveys him for a moment, but his partner doesn’t acknowledge him. It feels like day one all over again. Worse than day one—at least then he had been offered a handshake.

“I understand that you’ve stumbled on something that requires my immediate attention,” Wyngaard begins in his trademark somber manner, ignoring Numbers’ half-hearted pleasantry. “Due to the…” he pauses, “ _delicate_ circumstances surrounding the matter, I will be investigating Mr. Kranz and ultimately dealing with him, personally.”

 _That_ wins a look from Numbers, and a shiver sprints down his arms at the thought. Bosses never get their hands dirty; they had traded long hours of legwork and bloodstains on their clothes for offices and daily lunch meetings the second they got the chance. Besides, Wyngaard’s a formidable enough figure in settings like this, always acting as serious as a fucking heart attack when there are only facts and dollar signs and heaps of paperwork to directly deal with. Give the guy a gun or a knife and Numbers imagines his morbid calmness would become outright terrifying, like some kind of Bond villain.

As Wyngaard leafs through the files and begins covering the details of the assignment, what went wrong where and how the whole mess of a situation was dealt with “well enough, despite it all” (which, in typical Wyngaard fashion, could be either a compliment or a slight), Numbers devolves into his usual state of half-listening. He bobs his head occasionally and signs the important bits to Wrench, if he catches them. It’s nothing Wrench can’t read in the report Wyngaard will force them to sign off on in a week or two, anyway.

When not being addressed in other meetings, at least Wrench could spend his time fending off the skeptical, disapproving looks of the other men in the room with his own icy glares. He managed to shake up a few of the newer assets a few times, and, on one occasion, even received a timid apology and a handshake from a short guy called Mr. Books after the conference concluded.

Now, with only Numbers and Wyngaard present, boredom creeps in and his mind has nothing to do but slip backwards to the meeting that took place the day after his old partner disappeared below the thick Canadian ice. It was a long session—almost as long as his first, now that Mr. Drift was dead and it was back to the tedium of his notebook—and he had spent at least an hour debating whether or not to broach a certain question. After the other men cleared out, he finally decided to ask.

_What was his name?_

To his surprise, Mr. Wyngaard had pinched his thin lips into what Wrench had thought, at the time, was a sad smile and taken Wrench’s notepad into his bony hands. _Stephen Finch._

Wrench spent the next few days wishing he hadn’t asked.

“Chet,” Wyngaard says, shifting gears and his tone along with it, “was a vital part of Fargo for many years. His death was unnecessary. Losing him is a blow to this organization.”

The tips of Numbers’ ears burn red. “Look, I don’t know what you wanna hear. I told him to stay out of it yesterday.”

“You stated that you and Mr. Wrench took advantage of the offer to use his cottage, did you not?”

A deep, frustrated sigh rushes out of him; Numbers loathes when Wyngaard talks like he’s some kind of lawyer conducting a cross-examination. “Well, yeah, but—”

Mr. Wyngaard’s keen eyes darken. “Then, Mr. Numbers, it seems you welcomed his continued presence. You should have followed protocol and found a motel, or some other accommodation.”

Wrench uneasily glances from Numbers to Wyngaard and back again, his brow creasing. _“Everything ok?”_

Numbers holds a hand up, blocking Wrench from his peripheral view. “What was I supposed to do? Tell him to fuck off?” The red spreads down from his ears and flushes across his face, tingeing it a few shades lighter than his shirt. When they had met with Chet at the diner, all Numbers could think of was how fucked up his relationship was with the old guy. _Complicated_. That’s how he had described it to Wrench. But it doesn’t feel so complicated now, not at all. “When has Chet ever backed down from anything? C’mon, boss, you knew the guy. He was as stubborn as anybody else. This is…” Numbers’ eyebrows rise and he shakes his head, at a loss. “He made his call. That’s all there is to it.”

Wyngaard blinks, folding his hands in front of him and considering Numbers as if he were a particularly red specimen under a microscope. “Mr. Numbers, you’ve always been a valuable asset to this syndicate. You’ve proven, time and again, that you are more than capable of completing assignments, no matter the circumstance.”

Numbers holds his breath.

“However, your contact with Chet should have ceased after he delivered his findings to you. There was no reason or merit in your continued communication. This,” he hisses, his voice dangerously hushed, “is _your_ fault.”

Numbers nods, swallowing around a lump. He was already blaming himself, but Wyngaard’s words confirmed his fears. This was his fucking fault. He tries to let it sink in so it’s easier to accept the full weight of his responsibility, but decides he doesn’t want it to seep in too far. Not yet. He wills his mind to be as still as his hands refuse to be.

Mr. Wyngaard nonchalantly closes the files and straightens in his chair. “I believe we’re done here.”

 _“That’s it?”_ Wrench leans into Numbers’ view, too confused to notice the dazed expression overtaking Numbers’ previous frown. _“No new job?”_

“Uh,” Numbers clears the knot of guilt from his throat. “Where do you need us next?”

Wyngaard looks from Numbers to Wrench, considering the both of them. “I’m sure I’ll have something for either one or both of you by Thursday. See me then.”

After relaying that to Wrench, Numbers leaves the room as quickly as civility will allow, his jaw working with every step down the hallway. It’s only once he’s inside the elevator that he realizes that Wrench was on his heels the whole time.

_“What happened back there?”_

_“Nothing.”_

Wrench rolls his eyes, pressing the button for the lobby. He didn’t just spend the last week trying to put Numbers on the path to maybe, _someday_ , becoming a halfway decent partner, just for him to clamp up on him again. _“Don’t bullshit me. What did he say to you? Was it about the job?”_

 _“About Chet,”_ Numbers signs, an absinthian laugh sputtering past his lips. _“Boss put the blame on me.”_

Wrench thoughtfully chews on the inside of his cheek and frowns, folding his long arms over his chest. After the elevator reaches the main floor, he unwinds them. _“There’s a reason the bosses are the bosses.”_

One of Numbers’ eyebrows shoot upwards. _“Nepotism?”_

_“No: control. They all believe everything can be controlled. Every situation, every person. Their job is to keep us in line, tell us where to go, when to move, who to kill. Some of the other hitmen are about it, too. Control. They’ll be upstairs with them someday. Not us.”_

Numbers watches Wrench, ignoring the _ping_ of the elevator as the doors close, swallowing up the view of the lobby.

 _“We know better,”_ Wrench continues. _“You said so yourself: can’t control everything. Things just…happen, sometimes. Nobody’s fault.”_ He allows the words to hang a moment for Numbers absorb them. Then, he adds, _“Chet wasn’t your fault.”_

The elevator doors part again, and Numbers leaves without another word. The promise of freedom for the rest of the week weighs heavily on his mind, and he’s already dreading the burden of being left alone to his thoughts and fears, letting Wyngaard’s words replay over images of Chet’s lifeless body. It all seems unbearable. On the drive home, he tries to focus on Wrench’s offer of comfort, but can’t. Sometimes, truths are just as hard to swallow as the smallest of lies.


End file.
